BCCI to ‘earn Rs 360 crore in 2 years’ after auction of 2 new IPL teams

The BCCI’s reputation may have taken a huge beating following the 2013 IPL betting-fixing scandal, but on Tuesday it said that the inclusion of two new teams — Pune and Rajkot — for IPL 2016 and 2017 would make the world’s wealthiest cricket body richer by “more than Rs 360 crore”.

The base price was set at Rs 40 crore and bidders.

Seven years ago, at the January 2008 auction, the eight original teams had paid the BCCI a combined $723.59 million for 10-year ownership of franchises, and the two teams added on Tuesday would fetch the Board more than Rs 360 crore in just two years.

While announcing the winners of the bids BCCI president Shashank Manohar said that the inclusion of the two teams – after the suspension of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals by the Supreme Court-appointed RM Lodha Committee – would fetch the Board nearly Rs 180 crore annually.

Manohar said a total of five entities entered the fray through walk-in reverse bidding on Tuesday; the three that lost out were Harsh Goenka of RPG Properties, Axis Clinical and Chettinad Cement.

By a strange co-incidence, of the five bidders only New Rising Promoters and Intex Mobiles bid in minus, which meant that they would be straightaway giving a total of Rs 26 crore.

“In all there were five bidders. The winners are New Rising Promoters for Pune who had given a bid of minus Rs 16 crore and Intex Mobiles for Rajkot, who had given a bid of minus Rs 10 crore,” Manohar announced at a press conference.

“Because of these two new bids the Board’s revenue is going to increase by nearly Rs 180 crore annually. So, for two years, the Board would make more than Rs 360 crore,” he said.

With the two teams identified, the process for the 2016 IPL began. The tournament will be of 51 days; it will start with an opening ceremony on April 9 in Mumbai and would conclude with the final on May 29, also in Mumbai, said IPL Governing Council chairman Rajeev Shukla.

New Rising Promoters and Intex Mobiles will now participate in an auction limited to these two franchises to retain players drawn from Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals.

“There would be a draft auction on 15 December where they would be entitled to pick five players [from a bunch of 50 players who were part of the suspended CSK and RR]. New Rising Promoters would be picking up the first player. The second player would be picked up by Intex. Likewise, they would take five players from 50 players from both teams, that is Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals,” said Manohar.

Players drawn from CSK and RR will be divided into two groups, of capped and uncapped players, and the top five will be sold through the draft auction. Each of the two new teams will have a minimum of Rs 40 crore and a maximum of Rs 66 crore to buy players.

The first player picked would get Rs 12.5 crore, the second Rs 9.5 crore, the third Rs 7.5 crore, the fourth Rs 5.5 crore and the fifth Rs 4 crore.

Unlike the original bidding done for the eight teams in January 2008, Tuesday’s bidding for the two interim teams’ was walk-in bids.

The five bidders opted for more than one city from the nine made available by the BCCI. Pune was the favourite among the bidders.

New Rising bid minus Rs 11 crore for Nagpur. Intex also bid for Nagpur and Visakhapatnam, but quoted Rs 10 crore for each of the two cities. Chettinad Cement quoted Rs 27 crore for both Pune and Chennai.

RPG bid Rs 17.88 crore for Pune and Rs 20.88 crore for Rajkot. Intex bid Rs 10 crore each for Kanpur and Visakhapatnam while Axis quoted Rs 15 crore each for both Nagpur and Kanpur and Rs 10 crore for Pune.

Shukla said that a franchise workshop would be held on January 13 and 14 in Srinagar.

Manohar announced that the BCCI would present Rs 2 crore to the Indian team that defeated world number one South Africa 3-0 in the four-match Test series that concluded on Monday.